Beware of fresh dirt mounds in the yard. It may be an alligator nest packed with eggs

It’s that strange time of year in the southeastern United States when the sudden appearance of fresh dirt in the yard can mean big trouble.

July is when alligators stray from the safety of water and head for dry land to build large nests that can hold as many as 40 eggs.

It’s often done at night night, which means property owners and tourists from Texas to North Carolina may wake up one morning this month to find a conspicuous fresh mound of mud in the yard.

The mama gator will likely be nearby, the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks reported this week in a Facebook post.

“Due to their cold-blooded nature, alligators do not lay on their nests as a bird does and will rely on the decomposition of plant material to provide heat for incubation,” the department wrote.

“What they do is, they begin to scratch up all this material, which consists of dead vegetation, live vegetation, soil, all into a pile right there. Basically, (the alligator) builds a compost pile. And then she’ll deposit her eggs inside the nest ... (and) covers them back up,” a department official said in a video with the post.

The video also gives tips on how to recognize an alligator nest, which can be up to 20 feet from water. The mounds can be quickly disguised with weeds, the video shows.

And they’re big, stretching 7 to 10 feet in diameter and up to 3 feet tall, according to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute.

It takes 60 to 65 days for the eggs to hatch in the toasty heat of the rotting compost, a Mississippi official said in the video. At that point, the babies begin making a “barking sound” in the ground, which prompts mom to dig them out.

Baby alligators are born six to eight inches in length and hungry, according to the Smithsonian.

The American alligator, which grows to more than 12 feet and 1,000 pounds, ranges from eastern Texas to North Carolina, according to the National Wildlife Federation. They often thrive in the same areas that are popular with vacationers in the Southeast.

“These reptiles are usually found in slow-moving freshwater rivers, but also inhabit swamps, marshes, and lakes,” the federation reports.